Chương 2
“She walks out with me,” Maya said.
The father glanced at her bare arms beneath the oversized sleeves. “You can barely stand.”
“I didn’t say I’d carry her.”
“You won’t make it across the floor.”
“Then bring the car closer.”
The square-faced man breathed through his nose.
The father looked back at the doorway. “Move the second vehicle inside.”
A man near the entrance lifted his wrist and spoke quietly into a radio.
Maya stared at the father.
“You listen well,” she said.
“I’m trying to.”
“No. You’re used to being obeyed.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
The honesty disturbed her.
The girl coughed against Maya’s chest. It began as two dry sounds and deepened until her whole body strained. Maya cupped the back of her head and leaned her forward. The denim jacket slipped from one shoulder.
The father moved instinctively.
Maya flinched away.
He stopped so quickly that the steel watch caught the headlights.
“I won’t take her from you,” he said.
“You’ll have to eventually.”
“Not in the next minute.”
The black SUV rolled through the loading door, tires passing over glass and shallow water. It stopped close enough that heat from the engine touched Maya’s face. One of the men opened the rear door.
The interior smelled of leather, rain, and something faintly medicinal.
Maya looked at the men around her.
“Guns stay out.”
The square-faced man stared.
The father said, “Do it.”
Two men moved toward another vehicle. The others holstered their weapons beneath their coats.
Maya tried to stand again. This time the father extended one hand but kept it far enough away that she could refuse.
She ignored it.
Her broken shoe slipped.
His hand caught her elbow.
Maya jerked back so violently that the girl cried out.
The father released her at once.
“Sorry,” he said.
It did not sound like a word he used often.
Maya steadied herself against the wall, then rose with the girl held against her body. The child was not heavy. That was worse than if she had been.
The father stepped aside.
Maya limped toward the SUV while the armed men watched her as if she were carrying a live explosive.
The girl kept looking over Maya’s shoulder at her father.
He followed at a distance.
Inside the SUV, Maya settled sideways across the back seat with the child still wrapped around her. The father entered from the opposite door. The square-faced man took the front passenger seat. Another man drove.
The doors closed.
The warehouse vanished behind tinted glass.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
The girl’s breathing sounded wrong—too fast, with a wet catch at the end. Maya rubbed her back through the denim.
The father took out his phone.
“Tell St. Vincent’s pediatric emergency team we’re six minutes away. Respiratory distress, high fever, probable dehydration, possible sedation exposure.”
Maya looked up.
“You know that from looking at her?”
“My wife was a physician.”
The sentence arrived flatly. It still carried weight.
“Was?”
He did not answer.
The square-faced man turned halfway around. “What did they drive?”
“A gray cargo van.”
“Plate?”
“Covered.”
“Make?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were close enough to take the child but not read the van?”
Maya looked at the back of his head. “I was busy not getting her killed.”
The father’s eyes shifted to him.
The man faced forward again.
The girl stirred. “Maya?”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The father lowered his phone.
Maya wished she had not promised. Promises made to frightened children had a way of becoming debts adults could not pay.
She had learned that at fourteen, when she told her little sister she would be back before the thunder stopped. Maya had been gone three hours. By the time she returned, the ambulance was already outside.
The memory came now because of the child’s damp hair, the sour smell of fever, and the small fingers refusing to let go.
Maya pushed it away.
The SUV accelerated through a yellow light. The city before dawn passed in wet fragments—closed storefronts, traffic signals changing for empty intersections, a sanitation truck spraying dirty water from its tires.
The father leaned forward.
“Turn the heat down.”
The driver adjusted it.
“She’s freezing,” Maya said.
“She’s febrile. Too much heat can make her more uncomfortable.”
Maya touched the girl’s cheek again.
The father watched her hand.
“What’s her name?” Maya asked.
He waited a beat, perhaps surprised she did not know.
“Lucia.”
Maya looked down. “Lucia.”
The girl’s eyes opened.
“Lucy,” she whispered.
“All right. Lucy.”
“My mama called me that.”
The father looked out the window.
Maya saw the reflection of his face in the glass. Nothing moved except a muscle near his jaw.
At St. Vincent’s, the emergency entrance had been cleared before they arrived. Two nurses, a respiratory therapist, and a physician waited with a gurney under the bright canopy.
The SUV stopped.
The father opened his door but did not reach across the seat.
“Maya,” he said, “they need to take her now.”
Lucia made a frightened noise and locked both arms around Maya’s waist.
The nurse nearest the door was a woman in her fifties with silver braids and a badge that said DENISE.
“We can let her stay close while we get Lucy onto the bed,” Denise said. “Nobody’s pulling anybody away.”
Maya believed her more than she believed the armed men.
She slid toward the door.
Her legs failed when her feet touched the pavement.
The father caught her under both arms before she hit the ground. The movement was fast but careful. He held her only long enough for Denise and another nurse to take over.
“I’m fine,” Maya said.
Denise glanced at her blue lips. “You people always say that when you’re turning the color of a recycling bin.”
“I’m not the patient.”
“You are now.”
May you like
Lucia screamed when the respiratory therapist tried to lift her.
It was not a loud theatrical scream. It broke halfway through and became a cough.
